Expired ink

Q. We have the HP Business Inkjet 2230 at our home computer desk that will not print. It gives me a message that says my ink is out of date. Is there anyway we can trick it into printing despite the expiration dates?

A. I can see where being alerted to the fact that your ink is getting old and unreliable might be of a benefit if you are about to print something. I can even see that this might be helpful in prolonging the life of a printer by keeping us from clogging up the print heads with faulty ink. But the idea of forcing you to change a cartridge that still has useable ink in it seems a little pushy to me.

The good news is that not all HP ink cartridges with expiration dates block you from overriding this warning. Only HP printers that use HP 10 through HP 14 cartridges have this annoying and costly feature.

The quick workaround to this problem is to change your computer calendar back one year. This will trick the system and allow you to proceed with your print job. You can always set the calendar back when you’re done.

A more long term fix is to power down and disconnect your printer and then remove the battery inside the printer and leave it out for about 10-15 minutes and then replace it. This resets the printer memory and will allow you to use your expired ink cartridges.

HP goes to some length explaining their reasons for expiration dates on their Web site. Keep these in mind if you decide to bypass the warnings and know that you do so at your own peril, however slight or severe the consequences may actually be.